Our Story

HIFU History Timeline

SonaCare Medical designs and manufactures HIFU surgical ablation systems that offer physicians and patients both clinical effectiveness and quality-of-life interventions. SonaCare Medical's strategic vision is to develop and commercialize a range of products aimed at bringing the benefits of therapeutic focused ultrasound to as many patients as possible.

HIFU: The Beginning

Since the first stethoscope, physicians have been using sound to better understand what's happening inside the body. In the 1970s, scientists at Indiana University were combining ultrasound physics and medical engineering to precisely ablate targeted tissue. The result… was the birth of HIFU or high intensity focused ultrasound. The first human HIFU trials were in patients with terminal brain cancer, which demonstrated encouraging improvement in patient symptoms.

Our History

After those early experiments, recognition of HIFU's exciting potential broadened. By the 1990s, a small team was established in conjunction with Indiana University School of Medicine, and in 1998 that team formed Focus Surgery, Inc. Complete with a HIFU laboratory, a handful of patents and a number of government grants, the team developed the capacity to manufacture the first Sonablate® system for prostate HIFU ablation and later the Sonatherm® for laparoscopic soft tissue ablation.

In 2004, USHIFU, LLC was established in Charlotte, NC to implement a clinical trial with an early version of the Sonablate® product. Four years later, USHIFU purchased Focus Surgery and a new subsidiary, International HIFU, was created to expand the use and sales of Sonablate® 500 globally.

After a rich history of technology development, clinical prowess, and commercial growth, in 2013 SonaCare Medical, LLC was established. This Company is a unification of all previously described organizations. SonaCare Medical has a new and focused strategic vision of applying HIFU technology to a range of medical indications that are clinically effective and have a direct impact on patient quality of life.

In 2015, Sonablate® became the first focused ultrasound device to be FDA cleared for the ablation of prostate tissue.

Present Day

Today - we are a global leader in HIFU therapies with over 15,000 patient procedures completed and regulatory clearance in more than 50 countries. We are the industry leader in focal therapy with a multitude of publications documenting positive patient outcomes spanning more than a decade. The best is yet to come.

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